Dr Manette had continued in good health, and at the centre of that warm family circle was always Lucie -- a loving daughter, wife, mother, and a kind-hearted friend.
When one's been away an age, and comes home hoping for rest—talk of the family circle, interieur, being a family man—and here one finds scenes and unpleasantnesses.
Yet I do not call to mind that I was ever in my earlier youth the subject of remark in our social family circle, but some large-handed person took some such ophthalmic steps to patronize me.
In his first years of contact with strangers, the youth who has known only the mild life of the family circle is frightened by the cruelty, selfishness, jealousy, which he thinks he meets at every turn.